i'm a pretty big fan of dwj. any list of books that have had monumental impacts on me would have to include fire and hemlock; i read it when i was about 13 or 14 and have since returned to f & h several times--first teasing out the ending, then, as i grew older, figuring out why it's such an uneasy mix of ya and adult fiction.

hexwood didn't have the same effect, though i think the fat of 20+ extra years is what's keeping me from slipping into those skinny pants of starry-eyed obsession, not the writing. but two big thumbs up for a fabulously tricky plot and the delicious assumption that the ya audience this book is supposedly aimed at will follow along for the ride. keep the faith, dwj! i certainly am.

more points for riding that thin line between alluding to extreme violence and describing it, so while the younger me would probably have had a fuzzy yucky idea, older me could imagine all too well what exactly was going on. sometimes less is way more. and even more points for good ol' not-pretty protagonists, because it's about the person, not the freakin' sparkles.

the downside? like many other dwj books the ending comes as a mad dash, chaotic and way too swift. chaos chaos chaos, a few pages sorting out who goes where, the end. take your time, dwj! if we made it that far, we're in for the duration. you can hold that final note just a few beats more.

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